Monday, September 13, 2010

I'm really excited for T.B.A.'s Manhattan debut!! T.B.A. is my newest project. We are on a mission is to create spontaneous improvisations over deeply soulful grooves. This means that every song we play is created on the spot!

Another cool thing about this group is that we are very unpredictable. T.B.A. weaves in and out of different genres seamlessly, playing rememberable melodies that you will go home singing. Dj Logic will be on the one's & two's adding his special ingredients into the mix. We will be rockin' the Metropolitan Room, Thursday September 16th at 7:00 -8:30pm. See y'all there!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Six years after the release of his promising debut CD, Hip to Bop, 29-year-old trumpeter Maurice Brown returns with a solid sophomore outing. A crossover disc in the best sense of the word, The Cycle of Love contains 10 simply stated, deeply soulful original tunes that touch back to ‘70s R&B while taking the pulse of today’s streets. The catchy pop-songs hooks and hip-hop-inflected beats seem to call out for lyrics, either written or freestyle, but left as instrumentals their subtleties are allowed to shine.

Brown’s quintet has a glorious ensemble sound. Drummer Joe Blaxx is always on the move: His complex, off-center rhythms have layers of cymbals and staccato beat dropping reminiscent of drum machines, while Solomon Dorsey’s casually bent bass tones soften the groove. They merge seamlessly with pianist Chris Rob, whose lush cascades and sparkling jumps provide elegance and dynamism to the rich, compelling atmospheres of the slow-jam title track, the hard-edged “Misunderstood” and the mechanized bounce of “Time Tick Tock”

Up front, Brown makes every note count. He’s not given to pyrotechnics, but his meaty tone packs a wallop once he gets heated up, jabbing repeatedly at a single note or phrase, then hopscotching forward. Saxophonist Derek Douget offers a pleasing contrast to Brown’s muscularity. His breathy, weaving lines trend to recede in the uptempo numbers, but sound oh-so-cool at slower tempos.

A disk that grows mmore dear with repeat listens, The Cycle of Love is one of the better releases in the current”back to soul” movement. Fans of recent releases by Nicholas Payton, Roy Hargrove, or Corey Wilkes will find an easy and rewarding connection to this highly appealing music.

About Me

You have heard Grammy Award-winning trumpet player Maurice “Mobetta” Brown before. After all, he’s appeared on LP’s from Santigold, Ski Beatz, Prodigy, Talib Kweli, Cee-Lo, Diddy, Musiq Soulchild and countless others; but you heard his trumpet and not his voice.

Think Louis Armstrong and his trumpet uploaded for the 21st century to a Hip-Hop beat, and you begin to understand who this young genius is. Maurice is a classically-trained Jazzman mentored and supported by the iconic Wynton Marsalis and the legendary Ramsey Lewis. But “Mobetta” is also a Hip-Hop head for life, and that journey on this planet rock literally parallels the history and evolution of rap. Little wonder that Maurice not only blows the roof off God’s sky with his horn, but he also spits lyrics the way Satchmo spit his own brand of vocalese back in the day. Yup, Mobetta is a horn-playing-rhyme-spraying-dancing machine that Jazz-Hip-Hop collaborators like Donald Byrd and Gang Starr’s Guru, or Ron Carter and A Tribe Called Quest fantasized about in the early 1990s. No need to cram to make that Jazz/Hip-Hop experiment happen in these times because Maurice Brown is the living and breathing embodiment of it all, a one-stop shop destined to be this era’s Quincy Jones. And then some!

Fresh off of winning his very first Grammy with Tedeschi Trucks Band for Best Blues Album of the year in 2012 (Maurice was the horn arranger for the 11-piece ensemble), Maurice is prepping his latest release, Maurice vs Mobetta, or, rather, Maurice’s azz side versus his Hip-Hop persona. Maurice vs Mobetta features appearances from Talib Kweli, Consequence, Prodigy, Jean Grae and production from Fyre Dept, DJ Scratch and Maurice himself and its a mere sampling of what’s in-store on Maurice vs Mobetta; as Brown has more in store, not only on this new effort, but coming down the pike. Know that Maurice vs Mobetta is a gumbo sound lab for this dynamic young trumpet player-arranger-producer.